Online dating is very popular way to meet other singles in our days. There are hundreds of dating sites to choose from, but how to choose right dating site which will work personally for you? There are many factors you should take into consideration before joining dating service, because often well known branded web site could not be successful for you. So let's find some key points when choosing dating site.

Matchmaking or Dating?

The main thing you should make clear for you is what kind of relationship are you seeking for? If you are looking only for friends to chat or discuss something maybe it will be better for you to join social network instead of joining dating site. Social networks like Friendster, Orkut, MyFace are built for these goals and are 100% free to use. You will find many new friends by your interests and you would not feel yourself lonely.

But if you are looking for serious relationship or potential marriage partner you must join dating services. But here you should choose what kind of services you want. At this moment online dating could offer you 3 types of dating services:

- dating services (where you search for your partner)
- matchmaking web sites (where cyber-algorithms will find potential matches for you. Most known example of such type is eHarmony matchmaking service)
- mixed services (where both mentioned types are available. Match.com is example of such type dating services).

Difference between matchmaking site and dating site is that on dating service only you decide whom to contact, while matchmaking will offer you potential matches according to your psychological portrait & interests. While mixed type will offer both services.

Identify your needs

If you know that you need specific partner like firefighters, pet lover or military single it is highly recommended to join specific dating sites. By joining dating site full of people you would like to meet and develop relationship you will increases your chances to meet someone. It works like in real life. If you want to meet single policeman you will go into police station to meet him. There are thousands of specific dating sites currently available on the net.

Sure you can join dating site with big audience and try to find your partner there but usually on specific dating sites response rate is much higher.

Brand

Well branded web sites usually is a guarantee of service. If dating site spends thousands of dollars to promote their service on TV, newspapers and Internet it means that they are successful and offering service satisfy customer needs (they pay service fee and company have advertising budget).

Free or paid

Forget about free sites. They surely exist and in some cases are very popular (plenty of fish is top5 dating site in US and Canada) but you will never enjoy your presence there. Free dating site is full of active profiles but photos are very low quality, no customer support and very bad design. Sure you will save some dollars but on free site you should not expect good service. There absolutely all will depend on your activity. Their only advantage in most cases is free services.

Paid dating is not necessary will be better than free site. Before paying for any service you must do a small research. Here are the main points you must search on the net:

- Chosen dating site reviews. Usually such reviews cover main advantages and disadvantages of service.
- User testimonials. It is much harder to find user testimonials on dating service but Google usually helps.

Very important. Never join web sites asking for credit card number when you register. In our days all dating site are free to register, but in 90% of cases you will be asked to pay for the service. But remember you should not pay for the registration.

Design

Main page of the site usually tells a lot about site. Main page is like a face. If you see not professional, poor-designed page with many ads and links than try to understand why do you see such picture. Maybe site don't have money to carry their service, maybe is not working at all but still can bill your credit cards.

Good dating site will have design and site structure. If don't like design but have interest in it you can join this site but think twice before paying for it.

Site database

Many advertising banners force you to click on them because "20 millions singles awaits you". But active database size is much more important. It is hard to find out the real database size without joining it but you can understand it size after using site for a few days without paying for it. Take more attention to following signs: how many people viewed your profile, how many people visited their profiles in last 48 hours, how many peoples replied to your messages and other activity signs. If you see life on web site that's good if not leave this site.

Conclusion

When choosing dating site first thing you should decide is to understand what kind of services you are seeking for. Than you should you make a search, when site is found it's highly recommended to make small web research before paying for it. If research did not help (or you can't do it) you should refer to other signs of succesfull dating site: brand, design and active database.